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Is it time to accept Revenge of the Sith as "one of the good" SW films? SPOILERS
- Thread starter enigmatic_alex44
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Count Dookkake
Member
The love story dialogue seems pretty realistic to me. I mean, they're both dorks; one's a techie turned monk and the other's a politician since before puberty.
I know this is not aspirational stuff, but it is real. Just look at any thread where dudes ask about how to talk to girls or threads with screengrabs of dudes sending painfully cringey texts.
I know this is not aspirational stuff, but it is real. Just look at any thread where dudes ask about how to talk to girls or threads with screengrabs of dudes sending painfully cringey texts.
crackhead_bob
Member
Here's a question. Could redemption have worked if Lucas followed any of your suggestions, but killed the tusken raider juveniles? Or even more complicatedly, could he have still been redeemed if he had still engaged in the slaughter of jedi children but spared the humans?
CrowdChant
Member
I wouldn't have killed the Tusken Raider children at all. I hated that whole kidnapping subplot altogether. Another thing in the prequel trilogy that made no sense to me. Yet another example of Lucas coming up with some half-baked idea to display Anakin's character flaws and illustrate how he fell to the dark side. I didn't get into discussing AOTC because that's a whole other can of worms. I think the killing of any children, human or otherwise, significantly tarnishes the redemption story in the OT. The Jedi children are even worse because these are children he likely knew and maybe even had a hand in training.
TheGameshark
Member
Yup movie is still bad
I've never seen this show, only all the movies. Whilst I will get round to it as I hear good things, that depiction of Anakin is flat out not the Anakin from the movies.
This 'adding depth' to Anakin I keep hearing the show does - is this style 'it'? Because that feels not so much adding depth but flat out reconning. His confidence of voice, his posture, his kind personality - none of this was in the movies.
It's about as depth adding as Obi Wan describing him in ANH, it flat out doesn't tally with what we saw.
https://youtu.be/eAKtZ_r0V6E
38 seconds in. Lost the will to live indeed.
IT: It's the best of the worst but is in no way good.
38 seconds in. Lost the will to live indeed.
IT: It's the best of the worst but is in no way good.
crackhead_bob
Member
Good points altogether. Watching Rogue One was bittersweet. Lucas could have made decent prequels if he had been more willing to delegate responsibilities onto a competent writing team. He did just that with Clone Wars. It's really staggering. Rogue One wasn't particularly remarkable, either. And yet look at the good will it's getting. I really liked Felicity Jones. Coupled with the performance of Daisy Ridley in Force Awakens, you could only imagine what a more competent director could have gotten from Natalie Portman.
A better director might have even gotten a passable performance by Hayden Christensen, as well as a more credible romance, and even more importantly, a plausible fall from grace.
beyond_death
Member
RoTS is my favourite out of the prequel movies so its probably the 3rd worst. I did enjoy the shit out of when it first came out but its got nothing on the OT.
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
Complaining about a Thor The Dark World poll is as pointless as trying to argue that RotS is a good movie. Both make you look ridiculous.
CaviarMeths
Member
So would you say... that it's Better than Thor 2: The Dark World?
Monocle
Member
Still totes better than Return of the Jedi, amirite?
Straight up bullshit. Just adulterated nonsense that glosses over the realities of good and bad filmmaking with a glib phrase.
You're right. It's not what we saw. Instead it's a character who has a modicum of likability, who doesn't emote like a fucking pouty child, and is someone whose fall can be seen as tragic. Wildly different from the fucking trashfire that was the prequel trilogy.
Watching Clone Wars now, and it only makes the prequels' failings all the more painful. Clone Wars Anakin is the character we should have gotten...
Monocle
Member
Totally agreed.
Even if it were a GOOD movie (It's not, but it's certainly the best of the prequels obviously), the fact that it's entirely contingent upon TPM and AotC makes it not possible to join the 'pantheon' either way as a great film. The original trilogy has its down moments and better movies and worse movies, but they are a great TRILOGY with three great movies. If Episode 4 and 5 were bad, 6 couldn't have suddenly been a great movie and you'd just ignore 4 and 5. Similarly, 3 is tolerable, but 1 and 2 are legitimately awful, and 3 has all of its narrative thrust derived from THOSE movies, not the trilogy that follows it. You can't just excise 3 and attach it like a weird extra limb onto episode 4 and pretend that's the good part of Star Wars.
Pretty much, as Lucas's sole folly for me.
Jar Jar. Bad CG. Flat direction. Forced romances. Mental decision making on behalf of the Jedi. Wonky editing. I could have forgiven all of this if Anakin wasn't portrayed as a brat.
If the whole prequel trilogy is focused on Anakins fall to the dark side, all creative efforts needed to be focused on whether the audience would give two shits.
It certainly wasn't Hayden's fault, don't get me wrong.
MooMilk2929
Junior Member
I've accepted 3 as good since I saw it. It got me to watch 1 and 2 which I hadn't before. Then I rewatched 4-6 which I only saw about once before. 3 Got me into star wars pretty much.
bishopcruz
Member
CinemaWins just did a video on Revenge of the Sith.
I still don't like the movie much at all, but this is probably the best defense of it I have seen. He does a good job explaining what the film did right, and taken on their own, the scenes he highlights are pretty good. The problem is that they never really flowed together well, and it never in any way resonated with me emotionally. He also goes out of his way to explain away the "died of a broken heart" thing.
I kinda wish I could see what others do in the film. The story, and the concept are not the problems, it's the execution that kills it for me. The Jedi being blinded by their own ideology, not seeing what is right in front of them, being caught in a war that they had no business being involved in, Anakin desperately trying to avoid loss, all of those are great ideas, but it just fails every damned time. As I said before, with better execution this film could have been a classic, hell it should have been a classic. But a great story and concept were pretty much killed by bad dialogue, wooden acting, and often stilted direction.
As for those who say that TFA is worse. It's odd, TFA is a worse story, has a worse concept, and is plagued by mystery box structure. It does damn near nothing new, and the characters are just kinda there. However the execution is so much better that it kinda crushes the prequels in that I can at least identify with the characters, and I generally feel what the movie wants me to feel. So yeah, bad story with great execution beats a great story with horrible execution.
which is why 5>4>6>7>1>3>2.
I still don't like the movie much at all, but this is probably the best defense of it I have seen. He does a good job explaining what the film did right, and taken on their own, the scenes he highlights are pretty good. The problem is that they never really flowed together well, and it never in any way resonated with me emotionally. He also goes out of his way to explain away the "died of a broken heart" thing.
I kinda wish I could see what others do in the film. The story, and the concept are not the problems, it's the execution that kills it for me. The Jedi being blinded by their own ideology, not seeing what is right in front of them, being caught in a war that they had no business being involved in, Anakin desperately trying to avoid loss, all of those are great ideas, but it just fails every damned time. As I said before, with better execution this film could have been a classic, hell it should have been a classic. But a great story and concept were pretty much killed by bad dialogue, wooden acting, and often stilted direction.
As for those who say that TFA is worse. It's odd, TFA is a worse story, has a worse concept, and is plagued by mystery box structure. It does damn near nothing new, and the characters are just kinda there. However the execution is so much better that it kinda crushes the prequels in that I can at least identify with the characters, and I generally feel what the movie wants me to feel. So yeah, bad story with great execution beats a great story with horrible execution.
which is why 5>4>6>7>1>3>2.
bishopcruz
Member
Eh, I always did, and I really don't like TPM, it just felt less cringeworthy than either AotC or RotS. Jar-Jar sucked, and Anakin did too, but at least Anakin wasn't the main damn character. Qui-Gon was pretty cool, and I actually cared about the lightsaber fight at the end, probably the last time I ever did in one of these. That, and I kinda liked it the first time I saw it, and liked it less every time after that. Eps 2 and 3 I just didn't like at all when I first saw them, and I still don't.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The character in TCW is angry and conflicted without being grating as hell. It takes what people said about it and actually makes that a fact, like the fact that he was kind and noble, what kindness did Anakin ever show in the prequel films?
None, that was my point.
I know nothing about TCW beyond people say it's good and I was replying to the person who posted that short CW clip. I watched it and in it Anakin seemed a composed nice, strong, firm leader.
The wider angle I was getting at is it's like an entirely disconnected character to the one we saw in the movies to the point calling them the same person seems a bit cheap.
I would put Episode 1 below 3 because had fewer highs plus the dialog, acting, Jar-Jar, Anakin, pacing, plot holes(like the blockade), story issues, it's less entertaining, etc.
Pod racing.
Honestly it maybe my least favorite SW flick. Reason being that it's the only one of the prequels that has any real importance to the overall story. It's the one where we finally see the fall of Anakin to Vader and it's so awful I have to force it out of my mind so it doesn't taint the OG trilogy. That's easy to do with the first two, but here I see the garbage tied to the actual Vader suit.
How he goes from 0-100 is ridiculous. 'I'll join you evil lying man so we can try and learn a secret death stopping power I've never heard of. Oh you need me to go slaughter a bunch of kids? No problem.' It's not earned at all and the reasons presented are just stupid.
I hate this movie. It's not any better than either of the other two terrible prequels and has the added bit of suck that it does the most harm to characters of the original trilogy. And not just Vader. We see why the emperor looks the way he does. It's not just the years of embracing the dark side twisting his appearance, no, he gets his face nuked by his own lightning while playing possum (I think?) with Mace. We see why Yoda is a recluse. Why? Well because he just fought the emperor one on one to a stalemate so obviously that means all is lost and he should quit and run off to a remote swamp planet to give the Sith Lord time to build his empire and super weapons.
No. It's not one of the good ones. This movie is awful.
How he goes from 0-100 is ridiculous. 'I'll join you evil lying man so we can try and learn a secret death stopping power I've never heard of. Oh you need me to go slaughter a bunch of kids? No problem.' It's not earned at all and the reasons presented are just stupid.
I hate this movie. It's not any better than either of the other two terrible prequels and has the added bit of suck that it does the most harm to characters of the original trilogy. And not just Vader. We see why the emperor looks the way he does. It's not just the years of embracing the dark side twisting his appearance, no, he gets his face nuked by his own lightning while playing possum (I think?) with Mace. We see why Yoda is a recluse. Why? Well because he just fought the emperor one on one to a stalemate so obviously that means all is lost and he should quit and run off to a remote swamp planet to give the Sith Lord time to build his empire and super weapons.
No. It's not one of the good ones. This movie is awful.
The Hamburglar
Banned
Star wars are not deep films and are nothing but pure entertainment. TFA fails as its boring, predictable and remake of ANH plus endless fan service.
despite their flaws, the prequels are more entertaining than TFA.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Rey taking up the lightsaber was the most hype as fuck moment I've seen on a cinema screen.
Disagree
Dash_Riprock
Member
TPM has aged far better visually. And RotS' plot is straight up embarrassing.
If you're under 10 maybe
You call TFA boring yet Episode 2 is the most boring one!
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
If you ignore everything about what makes a good film and the fact that this:
will forever have more emotion behind it than any single moment in the prequels than sure, if you hate good dialogue and would rather attempt to relate to a total creep who has no chemistry or anything in common with his wife then sure I could see how a better film would be boring. Especially since you actually have to think a little bit and pay attention while watching TFA, because a lot of it is show don't tell. Guess that's too difficult to do when you'd rather watch a whole lot of nothing happen, be told exactly when things are happening and how characters feel in the most poorly acted way possible, all while waiting for over choreographed lightsaber fights that have no tension but pretty pretty shiny shiny. Under those circumstances, I could see how a person could unironically enjoy the prequels more.
The Silver
Member
bit EP1 is the most boring, at last the cringe of AoTC can keep me awake.
CaviarMeths
Member
"It's not original" has to be the most boring, misguided criticism of film. It completely handwaves all of the actual merit in filmmaking and storytelling for some arbitrary standard that frankly isn't all that damn important. Some of the best movies of all time are remakes or adaptations. Some of the best stories are literally thousands of years old. Hell, there's an entire category at the Oscars for adapted screenplays.
TFA is such a better crafted, better told movie than any of the prequels by orders of magnitude.
Phantom Menace has that fun adventure vibe from it that at least feels like a Star Wars movie, despite some really bad acting and a nonsense plot. It also aged the best of all the prequels due to not relying on so much CGI.
TFA is such a better crafted, better told movie than any of the prequels by orders of magnitude.
Phantom Menace has that fun adventure vibe from it that at least feels like a Star Wars movie, despite some really bad acting and a nonsense plot. It also aged the best of all the prequels due to not relying on so much CGI.
lol
That's...
I mean, why.
If you ignore everything about what makes a good film and the fact that this:
will forever have more emotion behind it than any single moment in the prequels than sure, if you hate good dialogue and would rather attempt to relate to a total creep who has no chemistry or anything in common with his wife then sure I could see how a better film would be boring. Especially since you actually have to think a little bit and pay attention while watching TFA, because a lot of it is show don't tell. Guess that's too difficult to do when you'd rather watch a whole lot of nothing happen, be told exactly when things are happening and how characters feel in the most poorly acted way possible, all while waiting for over choreographed lightsaber fights that have no tension but pretty pretty shiny shiny. Under those circumstances, I could see how a person could unironically enjoy the prequels more.
I don't see the point in being a dick to the guy. I wouldn't hold TFA up as some sort of paragon of quality, myself. I felt nothing in that TFA scene, anyway.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I'm not being a dick. I just legitimately cannot see as someone very invested in the film medium how someone would legitimately try to argue without a hint of irony that the prequels are better films, when it's been dissected to death how they fail at films and that TFA, in spite of it's flaws, like naming Leia's group the resistance, still manages to be an infinitely better film that accomplishes everything it set out to do not only as a film, but for the franchise. Aside from ESB and ANH I'd consider it the third best movie just based off of the acting and lack of "wtf was that," alone compared to the rest of the franchise. And it really doesn't matter if you specifically didn't feel anything during that scene, in every theater showing I went to, people seeing that for the first time all stood up and cheered.
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